Harvest: Organic Waste Recycling with Energy Recovery (B)

Abstract

This case describes the waste management industry and a clean technology solution for landfill diversion and renewable energy production. The (A) case focuses on the operational characteristics of waste management and waste to energy, and the characteristics of the waste management industry. The intent of the (A) case is to have students perform operational analysis on the organic waste to energy process to evaluate whether a potential new plant is economically feasible and attractive. The (B) case focuses on the sourcing dilemma: pre-processing vs. source separation. To ensure that its waste input fuel is of sufficiently high quality (i.e., low level of inorganic contaminants), the company can either build a pre-processing facility to sort incoming waste to filter out contaminants, or work with suppliers to source separate their waste stream.

Learning Objective: Illustrate the societal and operational challenges inherent in waste management. Provide framework to students for evaluating possible solutions.